US takes men’s basketball gold as London Olympics end

The road to gold for Lebron James, Kobe Bryant and Co. at the London Olympics on Sunday was a little bumpier than expected.

The U.S basketball team led Spain by one point on the final afternoon of Olympic sport and was ahead just 97-91 when James dunked and then hit a three-pointer to allow the Americans to pull away for a 107-100 win in a replay of the 2008 final at the Beijing Games. Bryant scored 17 points.

In the final minute, U.S. coach Mike Krzyzewski, in his final international game, took out his top stars who came to London determined to keep American basketball on top. When the final horn sounded, Krzyzewski locked James in a tight embrace as Bruce Springsteen’s “Born In The USA” rocked the arena.

In the bronze final, Alexei Shved scored 25 points — 13 in the fourth quarter — and Russia won its first Olympic medal in basketball, 81-77 over Argentina.

Earlier, in the first of 15 gold medals presented on the final day of the games, it was the marathoners who got to see London at its best. Under sunny skies for the fifth day in a row, the runners left from The Mall near Buckingham Palace and took a route along the River Thames past the Tower of London and circled close to Big Ben.

At the end of their 42-kilometre tourist jaunt, it was Stephen Kiprotich of Uganda who crossed the finish line first in a time of two hours eight minutes one second. Abel Kirui of Kenya was second, 26 seconds behind, while another Kenyan, Wilson Kipsang took the bronze.

“People didn’t expect Uganda. They thought Kenya, Ethiopia,” Kiprotich said. “Being unknown, now I’m known.”

The Kenyan team was running in memory of their countryman Sammy Wanjiru, who four years ago in Beijing captured the country’s first Olympic marathon gold. But he died last year after a fall from a second-floor balcony during a domestic dispute.

“That is very challenging for us,” Kenyan runner Emmanual Mutai had said ahead of the race and the difficulty of trying to win for Wanjiru.

At Hadleigh east of London, world champion Jaroslav Kulhavy of Czech Republic won a two-man sprint to claim the men’s mountain bike gold medal. Kulhavy made the most of a final steep ascent on the technical circuit in the English countryside to move ahead of Nino Schurter of Switzerland and then sprinted to the line.

Schurter claimed the silver medal and Italian Marco Aurelio Fontana of Italy took bronze.

In men’s boxing finals, flyweight Robeisy Ramirez won Cuba’s second boxing gold medal of the games, capping a stellar run through the tournament with a 17-14 victory over Mongolia’s Tugstsogt Nyambayar. Vasyl Lomachenko of Ukraine won his second consecutive gold, completing his domination of the London lightweights with a 19-9 victory over South Korea’s Han Soon-chul.

Serik Sapiyev of Kazakhstan won gold in the welterweight division, overcoming Britain’s Freddie Evans 17-9, while Egor Mekhontsev of Russia won the light heavyweight title on a countback tiebreaker over Kazakhstan’s Adilbek. The fighters finished level at 15 points apiece, and the tiebreaker — which evaluates larger parts of the judges’ total scores — also was level. The five judges then voted for their choice, and Mekhontsev claimed Russia’s only boxing gold in London.

British boxer Anthony Joshua won the super heavyweight gold in similar fashion, rallying from a third-round deficit to beat defending champion Roberto Cammarelle of Italy in another tiebreaker.

It was Britain’s 29th gold medal of the games, leaving the hosts third behind the leading U.S. total of 46 and China’s 38.

Elsewhere, Croatia won its first Olympic gold in men’s water polo, getting two second-half goals each from Miho Boskovic and Maro Jokovic to pull away from Italy for an 8-6 win. France beat Sweden 22-21 on to win its second consecutive gold medal in men’s handball.

Russia won its fourth consecutive gold medal in rhythmic gymnastics group all-around while its male volleyballers came from two sets down — saving two championship points — to beat Brazil in five sets.

At his final media briefing of the games, IOC President Jacques Rogge said he wanted to set the record straight: Usain Bolt was an “active” legend and the best sprinter ever.

Rogge surprised some earlier this week when he said the Jamaican runner needed to prove his greatness over more than two Olympics before achieving his self-proclaimed status of “living legend.”

On Sunday, Rogge relented a bit and came up with a different wording for the six-time gold medallist.

“I mean this is purely a semantic issue,” he said. “Let me finalize this issue as follows: to say that Usain Bolt is an active performance legend, he is an icon, he is the best sprinter of all time.”

Bolt won the 100 and 200 metres at the London Olympics, becoming the first athlete to sweep both events at consecutive games, and anchored the Jamaican team to a world record in the 4×100-meter relay on Saturday night.

On Sunday night, the Olympic Stadium will be transformed for the closing ceremony, when artists including The Who, Spice Girls and Annie Lennox will power through a play list of great British music past and present. Then, the flag handover and the extinguishing of the Olympic flame.

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